by rscholar » Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:03 am
Eureka: "O Little Town" - The entire town is shrunk during Christmas. Local nutty inventor Taggert creates a shrink ray to easily deliver Christmas presents, but the device is stolen to shrink fruitcakes into bite-sized appetizers. The literal explanation of the result is an out-of-control field effect caused by the energy necessary to shrink the super-thick cakes, which, coupled with the town's newly installed protective dome, shrinks everyone and everything inside. Aside from a quick zoom out of two characters, one played by the super-hot Erica Cera, looking up at the giant town sign and a brief scene of a Christmas ornament (somehow) rolling through town, nothing interesting happens. Everyone mentions they've shrunk, do their b-stories about what Christmas means to them, then quickly solve the problem. I wasn't expecting handhelds necessarily, but there was hardly any comparison shots or decent sense of scale to show.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (mentioning in part because I just heard they're looking to launch a reboot) - Supposedly there's a gag where some geeks were mapping out a shrink ray to rob a bank or something, plus there's an actual shrinking scene involving two guys trading sizes, but nothing actually happened to Buffy. Worse, there were plans for an animated series with a confirmed episode involving Buffy being shrunk, but no one would greenlight it.
Once Upon a Time / OUAT in Wonderland: Both had a few scenes, but OUAT never had something happen to the main female characters (outside a GT handheld) and only like towards series end had tangible sw but wasn't a major part of the plot (I think Ariel was once accidentally shrunk inside a ship in a bottle, but it's just implied). In OUATiW, Alice shrinks twice, but only one (in the pilot) has process; the other is her appearing tiny next to another character. I've actually heard a youtube podcast crew (all women I believe) say they wished they could've seen Alice shrink onscreen, then claim it would've been too costly to the studio, yet they took the time to graft Iggy Pop's face onto a caterpillar.
Mars Attacks: Towards the end, the lead alien whips out a shrink ray and zaps a crazy general, then stomps him. I actually think it's a really cool scene conceptually, but obviously it never happens to, say, Sarah Jessica Parker.
The Flash: Honey I Shrunk Team Flash - Despite the title, only two male characters are shrunk by the supervillain Dwarfstar, then mostly stand around and gripe (one of them, Elongated Man, gets stepped on and appears cartoonishly smooshed on the bottom of a boot). The main season villain, The Thinker, later steals a bunch of superpowers, including the shrinking ability, then raids a military compound and shrinks and stomps a guard. Far as I can tell it's never used again.
Supergirl: They introduced the concept of Red Kryptonite back in season 1, but so far it was only demonstrated to make her aggressive and evil. No word yet on Kandor or Shrinking Violet since the League of Superheroes was recently introduced.
Duke Nukem Forever: Supposedly there were plans for Duke to have a female sidekick, Bombshell, join him. The game features an extensive area involving Duke being shrunk to action figure size and riding an RC car. Bombshell seemingly would have been able to do the same.
Power Rangers: I believe there was an un-filmed two-parter involving some of the rangers being shrunk out of costume and involving at least one of the women rangers. In any case, the Zeo series has Tommy and Cat being shrunk to insect size, then restored by Billy with his own invention, meaning that universe depicted a human discovering how to alter the size of other beings whenever he wanted. Aside from sw potential, that should've been a game-changer in general.
Harry Potter: At least two forms of shrinking - spell and potion - and the only time I've seen anyone use on themselves or others was from the mobile game where the player's custom character shrinks themselves to sneak into a House.
He-Man: No Small Problem - The villains use a ray to shrink Orko, Man-At-Arms, and Teela and set a trap. He-Man, realizing he can't save his friends directly, reverts to Prince Adam and shrinks himself to foil the trap, then shrinks two male villains. Evil-Lyn, realizing she's beaten, cowers at the threat of being shrunk as well, but He-Man says her punishment will be to explain things to Skellator. Wow.
K3 - Love Cruise: Dutch(?) girl-pop band go on a cruise, but then have to deal with a freed vengeful genie/elf who at one point shrinks all three girls to about an inch tall. There's some great shots and one of the girls actually picks up her shrunken friend, but once all three are tiny they just sit at the edge of a table and talk, then, just as the boyfriend of one of the girls enters their room, they instantly poof back to normal seemingly for no reason.
Eureka: "O Little Town" - The entire town is shrunk during Christmas. Local nutty inventor Taggert creates a shrink ray to easily deliver Christmas presents, but the device is stolen to shrink fruitcakes into bite-sized appetizers. The literal explanation of the result is an out-of-control field effect caused by the energy necessary to shrink the super-thick cakes, which, coupled with the town's newly installed protective dome, shrinks everyone and everything inside. Aside from a quick zoom out of two characters, one played by the super-hot Erica Cera, looking up at the giant town sign and a brief scene of a Christmas ornament (somehow) rolling through town, nothing interesting happens. Everyone mentions they've shrunk, do their b-stories about what Christmas means to them, then quickly solve the problem. I wasn't expecting handhelds necessarily, but there was hardly any comparison shots or decent sense of scale to show.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (mentioning in part because I just heard they're looking to launch a reboot) - Supposedly there's a gag where some geeks were mapping out a shrink ray to rob a bank or something, plus there's an actual shrinking scene involving two guys trading sizes, but nothing actually happened to Buffy. Worse, there were plans for an animated series with a confirmed episode involving Buffy being shrunk, but no one would greenlight it.
Once Upon a Time / OUAT in Wonderland: Both had a few scenes, but OUAT never had something happen to the main female characters (outside a GT handheld) and only like towards series end had tangible sw but wasn't a major part of the plot (I think Ariel was once accidentally shrunk inside a ship in a bottle, but it's just implied). In OUATiW, Alice shrinks twice, but only one (in the pilot) has process; the other is her appearing tiny next to another character. I've actually heard a youtube podcast crew (all women I believe) say they wished they could've seen Alice shrink onscreen, then claim it would've been too costly to the studio, yet they took the time to graft Iggy Pop's face onto a caterpillar.
Mars Attacks: Towards the end, the lead alien whips out a shrink ray and zaps a crazy general, then stomps him. I actually think it's a really cool scene conceptually, but obviously it never happens to, say, Sarah Jessica Parker.
The Flash: Honey I Shrunk Team Flash - Despite the title, only two male characters are shrunk by the supervillain Dwarfstar, then mostly stand around and gripe (one of them, Elongated Man, gets stepped on and appears cartoonishly smooshed on the bottom of a boot). The main season villain, The Thinker, later steals a bunch of superpowers, including the shrinking ability, then raids a military compound and shrinks and stomps a guard. Far as I can tell it's never used again.
Supergirl: They introduced the concept of Red Kryptonite back in season 1, but so far it was only demonstrated to make her aggressive and evil. No word yet on Kandor or Shrinking Violet since the League of Superheroes was recently introduced.
Duke Nukem Forever: Supposedly there were plans for Duke to have a female sidekick, Bombshell, join him. The game features an extensive area involving Duke being shrunk to action figure size and riding an RC car. Bombshell seemingly would have been able to do the same.
Power Rangers: I believe there was an un-filmed two-parter involving some of the rangers being shrunk out of costume and involving at least one of the women rangers. In any case, the Zeo series has Tommy and Cat being shrunk to insect size, then restored by Billy with his own invention, meaning that universe depicted a human discovering how to alter the size of other beings whenever he wanted. Aside from sw potential, that should've been a game-changer in general.
Harry Potter: At least two forms of shrinking - spell and potion - and the only time I've seen anyone use on themselves or others was from the mobile game where the player's custom character shrinks themselves to sneak into a House.
He-Man: No Small Problem - The villains use a ray to shrink Orko, Man-At-Arms, and Teela and set a trap. He-Man, realizing he can't save his friends directly, reverts to Prince Adam and shrinks himself to foil the trap, then shrinks two male villains. Evil-Lyn, realizing she's beaten, cowers at the threat of being shrunk as well, but He-Man says her punishment will be to explain things to Skellator. Wow.
K3 - Love Cruise: Dutch(?) girl-pop band go on a cruise, but then have to deal with a freed vengeful genie/elf who at one point shrinks all three girls to about an inch tall. There's some great shots and one of the girls actually picks up her shrunken friend, but once all three are tiny they just sit at the edge of a table and talk, then, just as the boyfriend of one of the girls enters their room, they instantly poof back to normal seemingly for no reason.